There has been much hustle and bustle in the Studio this week as we get ready for next week’s Playable City extravaganza and we kick off a season of brilliant lunchtime talks with Tangible Memories.

We are delighted to say that we have sold out of tickets for the Making the City Playable conference on Wednesday and Thursday. If you haven’t got a ticket, don’t despair, if you haven’t managed to get yourself one, we have plenty of other playful events for you to attend. Circumstance will be hosting their unique, participatory sound performance, A Folded Path on 9 September - tickets are available here. Splash & Ripple and Ludic Rooms will be hosting a workshop for conference delegates, which will involve drawing with chalk outside. Inspired by this, Guardian Cities has initiated an open Chalkify challenge, which you can get involved with no matter where you are. See what people are chalking, and share your own pictures here. On top of all this, we will also be streaming all of the Making the City Playable Conference keynote talks live online here. Guardian Cities wrote an article around Playable Cities this week, which gives a brilliant insight into the Bristol-born Playable Cities concept.

This Thursday, we launch Shadowing, the Playable City Award winning commission. It will be installed in various secret locations across the city, and will be live until the end of October. We can’t wait to see how people respond to it, and the kinds of spirited games and interactions that will play out under the street lights.

This week, we are very happy to welcome the world back in to the Studio every Friday, as we kick off a brilliant season of fascinating talks, lively discussion, and open hotdesks on Friday afternoons. For a full talks schedule, including talks from our new Artists in Residence Run to Draw and artist and technologist Nikki Pugh, who will be talking about her project, Colony.

nu desine have been in collaboration with Make Your Sound Lab, PalmSounds and Heart and Soul London, a creative arts company who work with people with learning disabilites. They were at the Paralympic Liberty event last weekend, exploring ways in which the Alphasphere can be used in music therapy with children. 

Tarim and Tine Bech are installing their work at Ravensbourne this week. They will set up Tracking You, which uses RFID augmented capes and real-time positioning technology to generate sounds from peoples’ movements. They are also setting up Catch Me Now, a unique interactive spotlight which plays with the audience. The installation will be open from 15 – 19 September, so if you’re in London, go and have a play.

Nth Screen founder Tim Kindberg has been accepted into UKTI’s InnovationUK, which brings together inventive and creative UK companies with international investors, to explore innovative ideas and new export opportunities. This is a really exciting opportunity, and we are excited to see what comes out of it. Tim is looking for a part time PR worker to help him in the coming months with publicising the launch of his multi-device filming app, Nth Screen. If you are interested, get in touch with him.

We're very excited to announce that REACT is partnering with London Design Festival and Brompton Design District to Showcase Objects Sandbox at Christie's in late September. Objects Sandbox will be an exhibition of brand new products that explore possible experiences in the Internet of Things, which have been developed as part of REACT’s Objects Sandbox scheme. Each product has been developed by teams of globally renowned designers and academics including Uniform, BioBeats, Kinneir Dufort & Play Nicely. The event will take place from 17-21 September. REACT are also running a parallel event at the V&A Digital Design Weekend (20-21 September), presenting experience and physical prototypes from the Objects Sandbox projects.